On Wrathgate

Lore Story Forum
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Last Week I made a Thread on why I hate Varian Wrynn with a Burning Passion, and in it I said that i would eventually cover why Wrathgate sucks and the lingerng problems it left on WoW. TBH These problems could be said to have started through out all of Wrath of the Lich King, but outside of them being unable to write a smart antagonist (which is more a problem on their technical skills) and NPCs Kill Stealing, all show up in Wrathgate and the Following battle for undercity.

The first one that applies to all parts of WoW is that it really helped popularise the Idea of a more Cinematic storyline, with cutscenes being the reward for doing well and being a major plot pusher. This doesn’t seem bad at first, but when taken out of control like in BfA, it can lead to Elminster Syndrome. Elminster Syndrome is when the Players are taken out of the story and have little to no agency in how it goes forward for a plot critical scene do to an NPC solving the Problem, which is not how you should write a video game. It worked for Wrathgate because it was setting the Stage for a plot critical encounter, but when the reward for a game is a cutscene you make it more cinematic but less interactive.

The Next One mostly effects the Horde, but it has inadvertent effects on the Alliance. The Horde’s Villainbatting in critical scenes. The Forsaken in general were mistreated by Wrath, basically adding nothing to the downfall to the Lich King except attacking their allies despite Arthas’ death being the entire point of their society, but Wrathgate is when they made their big move. In it a Minor NPC, Putress, who despite being mostly unimportant is highly influental, is convinced by the Second most important Forsaken NPC, Varimanthus, to betray everyone and stage a coup (while hopefull killing arthas). This was in hindsight the beginning of the end… The sheer positive reception Wrathgate received made it so Blizzard felt like they could use the Horde as villain more often, leading to many, many of the problems in future expansions where the Alliance suffers a similarly devastating defeat as wrathgate by the Horde, but the Horde doesn’t really have an excuse as to why they shouldn’t be punched back. Meanwhile an Entire Horde race was eventually made to literally just be these Extremist, being turned into Blight Toting Mustache Twirling Villains without the hints of Humanity they had in Vanilla and BC. An Entire Race was changed into being a refrence to a scene were they betrayed everyone.

A third big issue that is more a continuation of the one from BC was the wasting of Character potential. A Bigger Plottwist them Varimanthus betraying everyone would be, Varimanthus NOT Betraying everyone. It would be cool to have a “Good” Demon who helps the players while still being a proper hellspawn. But he was an easy filler villain so he was made the villain.

A Final One is how it turned the focus from the main Bad Guy, Arthas, to the Faction Conflict. The Faction Conflict I feel is one of the most divisive elements of WoW, and in general it doesn’t help the narrative at all. It’s often forced into it either through contrived misunderstandings (Such as Ashran or Broken Shore) distracts from the WORLD ENDING THREATS (Like Deathwing or the Legion) and most of all, increases vitriolity amongst the playerbase.

All these issues first became apparant in Wrathgate, but back then they didn’t seem like issue. Of course the Dreadlord is a traitor, the Horde having an Extremist Element in it that doesn’t care about hurting their allies? WOW! Oh, after so long on being mostly background material we actually get to have a real war with the other faction, how Unique!

Ideas that were once plot twist have become core to wows identity and it suffers from that. The Novelty of the Forsaken betraying everyone only worls once before you lose peoples willingness to let them govern themselves. The faction conflict falls apart when you can’t conceivably end it and continue to escalate it to new extremes, and making a morally dubious character a Villain works until you run out of characters.

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The primary problem with this is that if Varimathus didn’t betray everyone it wouldn’t be because he wasn’t going to, it would be he just hasn’t done it yet. He is/was a Dreadlord after all and was placed where he was in the story to betray Sylvanas and the forsaken at a future date.

He is/was basically a Chekov’s gun.

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I always thought he was loyal before Wrath and they soft retconned him.
He helped kill his brothers in WC3, he had done too much.

It also makes Sylvanas look stupid if it was all legitimate. Although I think she was partly in on Wrathgate, lets assume she wasn’t. She runs the “Royal” Apothecary Society and said she would keep Varimathras on a short leash in WC3. Somehow a giant rebellion formed under her nose.

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That would be stupid, but I also think Blizzard retconned it and said she knew what was going on the entire time and simply allowed it to proceed.

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To be honest I feel that the Wrathgate cutscene had an ideal interaction between Horde and Alliance, which makes some of the bad aspects more palatable, but sadly Blizz didn’t really lean into this.

The wolfriders charging into battle with a unified ‘For the Horde’ has some of the best Horde energy of any scene, in my opinion, and is how things between the factions should be. Bolvar marching into the field to the salutes of soldiers contrasted by Draenosh doing a big speech about ‘Blood and Glory’ showed a lot of definition of the factions without putting them at odds with each other.

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Yeah, but they showed even before that he didn’t actually kill them and all the Dreadlords came back, multiple times. I guess he was playing the long game too, and Sylvanas learned from that… or maybe after the Jailer dies, we’ll find out Varimathras was the one that told her about everything.

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Divisiveness IS the idea… the two player factions are supposed to hate each other after all. I do think the execution could stand with improvement, but the central heart of this game has always been Red Vs. Blue. It’s as fundamental as White Vs. Black in chess.

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The entire game cannot revolve around the player characters! If anything, WoW is more interesting when big lore characters are in play. I don’t need to be the center of attention, nor do I always have to be the big key to solve every major problem of Azeroth.

The fall of the Lich King was as I felt it was suppose to be a neutral victory for everyone. It wasnt suppose to focus too much on any one race. Also, the Forsaken were not the only one greatly affected by Arthas, he has managed to affect nearly everyone in Azeroth, usually for the worse.

The Forsaken were that for years. I think you just refuse to see how corrupt the Forsaken under Sylvanas truly was. The good forsaken were the exception/people who were not in power.

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Putting the Forsaken in the game as a playable race was their first mistake. They should have only existed as antagonist to both the Horde and Alliance.

The way the forsaken were portrayed in warcraft 3 always meant they were going to be a Sinister race that were up to no good. The first allies they make the kill and eat, it doesn’t set a good precedent going forwards.

Was I surprised Varthimas ended up a villian no… however subverting expectations isn’t always a good thing making him good guy wouldn’t go very far. Besides Wrathgate was one of the most memorable experinces in Wrath which i have fond memories of.

I must say I like where they are taking the Lore with Dreadlords coming into shadowlands and might lead credence to Varthimas’s plans all the way back then. He was probably the one who made the Jailer aware of Sylvanas.

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Yes it can.
Though there’s a middle ground between ‘the entire game revolving around the player character’ and ‘the player is taken out of the story with little to no agency’.

Which is the problem at hand. It was a design flaw.

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When it comes for Forsaken players in general, I notice that they revel in the “evil” stereotypes, until the Forsaken actually do something evil in-game, then it’s nonstop QQ about how they’re not all like that.

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It not a design flaw if that was the design goal. Like it or not everyone wanted a shot at the Lich King and the racial story should take a quick back seat to seeing the Lich King fall.

I dont think there is. Especially not the way WoW’s story handles it. Look, sometimes the spotlight is better off on named characters as oppose to us. Much more so when we kill truly important big bads.

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I think the confusion is that people in a player base want different things. Especially when it comes to the nuance of presentation. You have some players that want to be full on evil. Some that don’t want to be evil. And some that want to be vaguely evil but not quite, just more-so sinister overtones and a few skeletons in the closet.

The problem comes when people lump a lot of people with differing opinions together.

The complaint is that the design goal was a mistake. Hence calling it a flaw.

I disagree, something so key to a race shouldn’t take a backseat there. There’s plenty of opportunity for this when the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade got so much attention.

I’ve played FFXIV. There definitely is.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

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One person calling the design goal a mistake does not mean it is a flaw. If anything, it did what it was suppose to do, and focus the story on Arthas’ end.

The fall of the Lich King was always going to be a “nameless heroes did it” sort of deal. Like it or not the Plague is one of the most important lore points of the Forsaken, and because using the plague to end Arthas was never going to be on the table, Blizzard used it to further future stories. Stories that to this day affect WoW.

What works for FFXIV may or may not work for WoW. Especially with the sort of Story Blizzard wants to tell and in particular what was needed for the end of one of Warcraft’s most iconic villain.

The Fall of the Lich King is definately a better story when it does have lore characters being a focus of it. Hell, now after all these years that particular setup is finally going to be used to further WoW’s story.

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The number of people don’t really matter to whether or not it is. It is an opinion as much as saying it isn’t a flaw is an opinion.

Doesn’t mean that’s a good decision. Hence the thread.

Well this thread is about people who didn’t like it.

There’s no reason it wouldn’t work. The way WoW did it was not the only or best way.

I think it would have improved if the Forsaken in general had more of a role.

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It never bothered me. She was distracted by the prospect of getting revenge on Arthas at the time.

Warcraft 3 didn’t have Forsaken. It had Scourge. The Forsaken were deliberately created to NOT be the Scourge. You can read the full story here:

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That’s what makes it a game as opposed to a storybook you play by turning pages.

In Warcraft, it was the same thing save that in turn, characters like Thrall and Arthas WERE the player characters. And the story DID revolve around them.

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There’s something to be said for the feeling of a wider world, where NPCs have their own agendas and things happen independent of what the PCs do. But that doesn’t have to mean that the player sits through entire cinematic storylines that have little or nothing to do with the PC, like what happened with Saurfang’s “rebellion.”

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I think a lot of WoW’s problems boil down to “just because it was good the first time doesn’t mean you should keep doing it indefinitely. Also, fire your B writing team.”

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Maybe you mean the game world shouldn’t revolve around the player? The story itself should still revolve around the main characters I think. But if the whole world seems to bend to fit a character they become a sue.

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